Between 2017 and 2025, India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) made changes to more than 720 hours of film content. Most of this, around 550 hours (76%) was deletions, ranging from cutting violent and intimate scenes to removing entire songs.

Another 80 hours were insertions, such as anti-smoking warnings or extra text/dialogue. Around 35 hours were replacements, where visuals or dialogues were swapped with toned-down versions.

Some examples: Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite lost nearly 4 minutes of stabbing, blood, and intimate visuals. Viduthalai Part 2 had a political line about voting added. In OMG 2, scenes of a divine figure meditating and bathing were replaced, while Dabangg 3 had offensive dialogues softened instead of muted.

Overall, visual scenes (50%) were the most censored element, followed by music (25%) and metadata insertions like warnings (17%).

The data come from CBFC Watch, an independent research project tracking censorship across India. It shows how deeply edits continue to shape what Indian audiences finally see on screen.